When mathematics is on the agenda today, students rarely experience bursts of enthusiasm. Even teachers who remember what was taught in high school 30 years ago sometimes feel that the subject of mathematics has degenerated into a math-free zone in some federal states after the reforms of recent years. Just as advertising makes us believe that a product made of gelatin and artificial flavors is a healthy snack, some educators want to explain that today’s teaching simply emphasizes different competencies. The author, who has been teaching at a high school in southern Germany since 2007 after several stops at universities in the USA and Turkey, is among the critics of modern didactics, who, like the famous inhabitants of a small Gallic village, face an overwhelming force of empirical images.